One of my Fav's.

Post Secret is one of my favorite websites. I love the simplicity and harsh honesty that the page presents, as well as the raw emotion it delivers, and the beacon of hope that it has become for so many people.

For anyone who doesn't know it, Post Secret is a site dedicated to displaying homemade postcards that divulge a secret of the sender. The secrets range from silly to suicidal and as a result can often have a profound impact on both the sender and the reader. It has spread into an international phenomenon with the original founder having published multiple books and running a Post Secret blog in English, Spanish, French and German.

The site posts a fresh batch of secrets every week, so I usually check it on Mondays before I head to work. If anyone hasn't yet seen this site, please, go check it out. It's amazing.

Welcome to my blog dedicated to my bike racing adventures.

I started this blog last year in hopes that it would help me be consistent about writing race reports, but when my readership sucked, well, I didn't feel like I had anyone holding me accountable for those reports. Anyway, if you haven't guessed, I love bicycle racing. I also love training and coaching and hope to start my own business doing just that. That's sort of why I'm taking this class, in hopes that it will help me to be more independent in setting up a site for my business. So that's a tad about me and why I'm taking this course.

Night two at the track.

Bad.

That's the race report.

Well, to be specific, bad legs, bad riders, bad placings. The good news? I'll be racing two crits this Sunday and track again next Tuesday. Hopefully my legs won't be so tired next Tuesday. I just couldn't get them to go last night. Oh well. That's racing, right? Sometimes you feel good, sometimes not.

Here's a video of a crazy crash up at the Alpenrose Velodrome in Portland, Oregon.

Krackatoa!!!

And a pic of my buddy BB (Ben Barsi-Rhyne) out at the velodrome. Not last night, but a couple years ago. He's a good kid. Photo by Garrett Lau.

Wow, I gotta get on top of this!

Ok, so I've now done three crits, two mtb races, and a night of track racing since my last entry. Results were: 9th, DNF, 2nd, 2nd, and I haven't checked the results for track yet.
More important results? Getting fit and having lots of fun doing it!

Last weekend was a super fun ride up at Nisene Marks with seven of my friends. We had a blast, then I went out a played soccer for the first time in months and my legs were hella sore on Monday. Today, out for a short run, some stretching, now to get ready for another night of track racing. Between school, work, training, racing and working on my own business, I'm quite busy. Nevertheless, I will make it a priority to start posting weekly.

In other news, if anyone hasn't heard, I'm getting all "I can change the world" on you guys. So here are some good links to check out.

http://www.freethechildren.com/

http://www.fouryearsgo.org/

Also, if you haven't heard about the new Nissan Leaf, you should check it out. Note bene: Nissan is working on a full line of completely electric vehicles, now we just need to get switched over to solar power and we'll really be making progress.

More race updates and Save the Earth propaganda coming next week!

Until then, a pic of me and some friends on the lift at North Star last summer. Woot!

Back in the saddle.

Well, I managed to completely burn myself out. I kept trying to get it together and just ended up stressing myself out. So I took a couple months off from racing, road my bike for fun and enjoyed some mellow time.

About six weeks ago I got back on a training program, and signed up for a cross country (XC) mountain bike race. Well, I didn't have an mtb to do it on, so I set up one of my cross bikes and headed out to the race. It was the TBF Racing Kick Start race. I love the course and the guys that put it on are just great. I've done a bunch of their races over the last eight or so years and have always enjoyed racing with them. This time proved to be no different.

Being a low key event held in late January on a drizzly Sunday there weren't a ton of racers out there. I managed to get the hole shot (thank you CX for teaching me how to start fast) and held the lead for about one mile. I was about third at the top of the first climb, 2 miles in, but my legs were burning. I guess a ten minute warm up for my first race in over two months wasn't enough. Oh well. I was a little rusty on my bike handling and made a few fumbles here and there.

About halfway through the lap I got hung up on some rocks and came to a complete stop. This would've been fine, if someone hadn't run into the back of me. Luckily no one was injured so I started racing again.

Halfway through lap two I started to question my fitness and motivation. Did I want to do the third and final lap? Did I have enough water? Did I have the fitness? Coming through the turn around for the final lap a guy behind me made an astute observation.

"Dude, your rear wheel is f*d."

I looked back to see that indeed it was. Well, that ended my race. I didn't feel comfortable risking my wheel collapsing on a rocky descent. So I pulled out. Covered in sand and mud, legs in pain, I rolled back to the start/finish to let the promoter know I wasn't going to finish.

My first race back, a DNF (Did Not Finish). But I was happy. I had had fun, and lots of it.